Perspectives on Global Development 2013

Perspectives on Global Development 2013

Industrial Policies in a Changing World

"Perspectives on Global Development" is a new OECD Flagship launched by the OECD Development Centre in 2010. The report has been conceived to stress the change in the global economic landscape and the gradual movement of the centre of gravity of the global economy towards the East and the South. This "Shift in Wealth" is opening up new opportunities for development and it is posing new challenges to developing economies, thus calling for renewed approaches in development policy and strategies. This new annual OECD report aims at flagging emerging issues in the development debate by highlighting new economic and policy trends in developing countries.

The "Perspectives on Global Development 2013- Industrial Policies in a Changing World" discusses the renewed interest in industrial policies by developing economies as part of their development strategies to face the changing global economic landscape. Since the mid-1990s, economic growth rates in large and populous middle-income countries have substantially outpaced those in OECD countries. This has reshaped the global economy and favoured convergence in global income per capita.

The process of “shifting wealth” was led by China and India, but other countries are also contributing to it, including Brazil and South Africa. In spite of the persistence of large gaps in income per capita between OECD and non-OECD economies and the wide inequality within developing countries, most developing countries have improved their macroeconomic management and have started to address long-term structural challenges. Developing countries are still accumulating capital and labour but they are also improving their capabilities and increasingly using and producing innovations. However, mastering technology and knowledge in order to move up the value chain is still a goal to be achieved for most of them. To address the new development challenges; some developing countries are implementing industrial policies to sustain growth by diversifying and upgrading domestic production.

The renewed interest in industrial policy poses new challenges and opportunities for the policy makers. At the launch of the Perspectives on Global Development 2013- Industrial Policies in a Changing World on 15 May, experts and policy makers from developing economies gathered to share experiences and discuss about challenges in designing and implementing industrial policies in our changing economic landscape.